anyone actually taste sweet goumi berries?

lifesblessings(6/7)March 4, 2009

I planted "Sweet Goumi" berry seedlings in a few different places last spring and they are doing fine... I'm curious what they will (eventually) actually taste like and how long before I get berries... One came as a itty bitty potted plant and its already a five foot bush. The other four came as bareroot seedlings and they're still scrawny looking but about 2 feet high. Are they any good to eat?

Well, today I tasted 5 berries, not bad taste wise but a little skimpy on flesh verses seed ratio, not sure if this is normal or if as plant gains maturity one would get more flesh on the berry... also could have let the fruit ripen another day but since there is going to be a lot of berries I just had to have a taste now! the next three to five days will give me a better picture.

They remind me more of persimmons than cherries- slightly astringent and mucilaginous. I like them but my MIL doesn't at all. I guess you have to like unusual fruits. If they are very overripe the seeds get very soft and I've chewed them. I had the first of the season yesterday. Grafted ones bear younger and smaller than seed grown. Mine from seed were several years old and hadn't borne and I bought little grafted plants with fruit already on them.

i dont recall the cultivar that i have (from One Green World), it started fruiting the year after planting, it now produces tons of berries, last year i decided i wanted to try them, so i nettet it as i never beat the birds, to me they taste like an autumn olive only larger, and since i have tons of it all over my property, i leave the goumi to the birds, and pick the autumn olives for jelly in the fall. nice bush, keeps my bees busy in the spring, fruit is good enough, but too much work to get for a lazy gardener such as myself

I have the variety Sweet Scarlet, and I really enjoy eating them, seeds and all. It is sweet and sour in flavor. Mine have been in the ground less than a year. The birds do get some, but I'm hoping as they get older and more productive, I won't mind sharing. I am anxious to try them in jam and dried. Red Gem is the only other named goumi I know of in the US selected for eating qualities. I wonder if it tastes any different from Sweet Scarlet?

I tried cooking some Goumis and ran them through a sieve. It was hard to push the pulp through the sieve because of all the seeds. I made my usual gelatin dish sweetened with Stevia, honey, or xylitol, and added a little almond extract, like when I make Aronia gelatin. It is very bland, not much flavor, but pleasant. I have to blend the Aronia first but get more through the sieve easier and then it has a lot of flavor. And so easy to pick. I find the Goumis very fiddly to pick, having to pick off each stem and dried up blossom. But I am picking some to freeze this year.

Well, the more berries I eat; the better I like them. I find that by putting a small hand full in my mouth and just kinda mushing them up and not chewing ; swallowing seeds and all, gives a better taste. I am really starting to like this fruit very much... nope, I am really starting to love this fruit.

We grow two types of goumi on our homestead in Portland, Oregon - Sweet Scarlet and Red Gem. They were purchased from One Green World and began fruiting their second year. Sweet Scarlet has proved to be the better variety with larger, sweeter tasting fruit. We get about three huge bowls full each year per plant. I am experimenting this year with jelly, syrup and juice.

My mother bought one that originally came from S. Korea, not sure if it has a cultivar name, but the fruit are quite large and give a pretty good seed to fruit ratio. When they are ripe, they are dark red, ovular, and have little brownish spots all over them. In Korean, the fruit is translated as "fly poop," for the little brown spots found dotting the fruit. The fruit are both sweet and tart and if picked too early are astringent, as some others have mentioned. They are particularly nice are a jelly or jam, and have a unique sour cherry flavor. We never net it, and after a two years has turned into a pretty large bush about 4 feet tall. Produces fruit abundantly, and we've never had to net it. The first year the fruit mostly dropped early, but this year we had a nice bumper crop to jam. Give it a try if you like something a little different.